


make me live now, honey

by tartymoriarty



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: Froger Week 2020, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 06:47:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,169
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27729010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tartymoriarty/pseuds/tartymoriarty
Summary: It ends with a moment of euphoria, except it’s not really an end, and it could even be a beginning.AKA: five times Freddie said no, and one time he said yes.
Relationships: Freddie Mercury/Roger Taylor
Comments: 18
Kudos: 43
Collections: The Froger Week 2020





	make me live now, honey

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nastally](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nastally/gifts).



> Don't mind me, just timidly dipping my toe into the Froger waters...

It starts, as so many things do, with an ill-considered game of spin the bottle.

They’re at Brian’s bedsit, which means a number of things. Firstly, there’s really not enough room for the twenty-odd people who’ve turned up at the sniff of a party; secondly, Brian has been looking steadily more and more harassed as the night draws on, particularly when anybody so much as glances towards the pile of uni work spread out across his rickety little desk; and finally, stupid games like spin the bottle are most definitely needed in order to diffuse the not-inconsiderable discomfort that arises whenever one of Brian’s musician friends tries to find a mutual interest to talk about with one of Brian’s physics friends.

It’s not Freddie’s idea, though it may as have been. He hit pleasantly drunk a couple of hours ago and has veered into giggly drunk since, so when Roger grabs his elbow and crows, “Let’s spin that motherfucking bottle!” right in his ear, Freddie just laughs giddily and lets Roger tow him towards the circle.

It’s not a circle so much as a huddle, hunkered down in the only bit of space left by Brian’s cramped kitchen area. Freddie squeezes down into the last bit of space across from Roger and casts a quick eye around the group, but he only vaguely recognises a couple of them from Smile gigs. One of them looks back at Freddie appraisingly. Freddie looks back, but he’s distracted by Roger, who leans in to capture Freddie’s attention by pulling the most gargoyle-like expression he can manage.

“No-one’s going to want to land on you with a face like that,” Freddie tells him smugly, but Roger just grins and crosses his eyes at him.

The bottle doesn’t spin in his direction for the first four turns, but he joins in with the jeering and cheering anyway. The girl next to him, a slender brunette with chunky glasses and enviable legs, sends the bottle rattling towards the man who’d caught Freddie’s eye. Their kiss lasts longer than anyone else’s and Roger bursts out laughing when Freddie boos at them and gives her a bit of a push for good measure.

“Stop hogging the bottle!”

They finally break apart and the bottle spins again and again, and Freddie seems to repel the bloody thing so he stops paying all that much attention and starts staring at the artex pattern on Brian’s ceiling instead. He’s halfway lost between the swirls of greying paint and the rumble of Jimi’s guitar in the background when he hears Roger hoot with laughter again and someone nudges him firmly in the ribs.

“Oi, dreamy, it’s your turn.”

Freddie blinks himself back to reality and finds a nervous-looking redhead eyeing him up from across the circle. She’s pretty with her large eyes and her freckles dusting a turned-up nose, and she does nothing for Freddie but that’s beside the point. He gets up onto his knees and crawls forward a bit to meet her. She smells of a perfume Freddie faintly recognises from somewhere, orange blossom and jasmine, and her lips are warm when they touch his.

She’s flushed when they draw back and Freddie darts her a quick little smile as he takes his place in the misshapen circle again. He grasps the cool neck of the bottle and flicks it.

The bottle forms a blurry green circle as it spins and slowly trails to a stop. Freddie watches it, grinning idly to himself, and looks up to see what he’s got.

The bottle has stopped between Roger and the girl next to him. They’re alike; both blonde with big blue eyes and matching expressions mischievous daring.

Freddie doesn’t feel very daring, all of a sudden, or very drunk. Instead, he feels all too aware and rather like the bottom has dropped out of his stomach, and it’s ridiculous, completely stupid, irrational. Roger’s his friend. His best friend, in fact. Roger wouldn’t – but Roger isn’t –

He’s still looking at Freddie though with that same bright grin, and he hasn’t said anything but Freddie can hear him in his head. _“Come on then, Fred, show us what you’ve got.”_

No more than a handful of seconds have passed but Freddie feels like he’s kept everyone waiting an age already, like everyone can read his battle on his face, like everyone _knows._

So he does the only thing he can do; he crawls forward and makes a very deliberate beeline for the blonde on the right and kisses her square on her laughing mouth, to a chorus of cheers all around.

He ignores the blonde on the left. Even when the kiss is over and the moment’s gone, it takes a while before Freddie can quite make himself meet Roger’s eye again.

-

“Don’t you think you’re going a little overboard?”

“No, Deaky, I do not,” Roger says from the chair he’s precariously balanced on as he blue-tacs tinsel to doorframe. “I think I’m hitting just the right balance of festive cheer and undeniable good taste.”

John watches him drape the far end of the tinsel over the other side of the door and turns to give Freddie and Brian a look. Freddie just shrugs at him. Brian, who’s already had three separate rows with Roger over their Christmas decorating, makes a big point of looking away and sighs.

If Brian’s given up on an argument, then the argument is done for. John sighs too and sits down heavily at the table.

Freddie privately thinks that Roger’s has only gone quite as over-the-top as he has _because_ of the resistance he has faced from Brian and John, but he certainly isn’t going to get into the middle of it. He doesn’t think Roger’s done too badly, really. It’s all a bit kitsch, but really, he can forgive Roger for almost anything.

It’s their first Christmas in the flat they’re all sharing, and Freddie expects it will probably be their last too, not only because they are definitely Going Places and will surely soon be able to afford better, individually; but also because he’s at least 80% sure that Brian and Roger will kill each other if they have to spend another year in each other’s pocket without reprieve, and he’s too fond of them both to put up with that.

Fortunately for them all, Freddie has discovered a sure-fire way to keep everyone quiet and more-or-less agreeable; an old Scrabble set that previously belonged to Deaky’s dad, and judging by the faded letters and battered board, potentially his father before him.

Sensing that Roger is on the verge of tying glittery baubles onto his tinsel just to spite the others, Freddie makes a show of stretching and looks pointedly towards the cabinet upon which the game rests.

“Scrabble, anyone?”

It works. Freddie fetches the game, Roger grabs a bottle of wine, and a bauble-related argument is successfully diverted in favour of an evening’s good-natured bickering about whether there is a limit to the number of times you can add ‘s’ to somebody else’s word before being disqualified from the game.

Brian wins, naturally, and heads off to the kitchen to make himself something more complicated than Freddie could ever achieve. Deaky retires to his room to work on his dissertation. Roger starts put the game away, half-heartedly keeping it tidy before he gives in and starts to toss the letters in haphazardly instead. Freddie just watches him, elbow propped on the table and chin propped on his hand.

When Roger’s finished he pours them both another wine. Freddie accepts his with a murmur of thanks and holds the glass out, expectantly. Roger raises his glass too with the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth and clinks it against Freddie’s.

“Cheers, darling.”

“Cheers for the drink or cheers because I tidied it all up?”

“Both.” Freddie leans back in his chair and waves a hand around at the room in general. “And for all this. It looks marvellous.”

Roger snorts at that. “Are you trying to make up for the look of absolute horror on Brian’s face when he saw what I was doing to the tree?”

Freddie clicks his tongue. “Roggie, what you do or don’t do with trees in your spare time is no-one’s business but your own.”

Roger whacks his arm but he’s sniggering as he takes another swig of his wine. They sit in comfortable silence for a moment or two. Then Roger breaks it by asking, “You really like it?”

“I do,” says Freddie honestly, and he finds as he says it that he means it; there are fairy lights strung up everywhere and random ornaments harvested from everybody’s parents, none of the tinsel matches and the Christmas tree is an explosion of chaotic colour but it’s all very _Roger_ and it makes Freddie happy when he looks around and sees their little flat all spruced up. “I do like it, sod those two killjoys.”

Roger smiles at him. “Thanks, Fred. Always knew you were the one with good taste.”

“The best,” Freddie says tartly.

They finish off the bottle between them and then vacate the table when Brian appears with his dinner, which just so happens to smell divine. He wafts Roger’s curious hand away from his plate and shoos them both away.

Freddie’s been turning a couple of lyrics over in his head for the past couple of days and he thinks he’s finally reached the point where he’d quite like to commit them to paper. He heads for the bedroom he shares with Brian. He’s already stepped into the room when Roger laughs softly behind him.

Freddie turns and glances at him questioningly. Roger is leaning against his own bedroom door, arms folded and grin in place. He looks like a model, achingly casual, lounging like that; it’s a look that Freddie knows he himself could never pull off because he’s always far too aware of people’s eyes on him, and if it was anyone but Roger, he’d probably be so jealous it hurt.

Roger is still grinning at him.

“What?” Freddie asks, immediately self-conscious.

Roger flicks his gaze upwards.

Freddie looks up too, half-expecting to see a bucket of water or a terrible photo of himself from childhood or a multitude of other horrors leftover from living in a dorm with twenty-nine other pre-pubescent boys. Instead, he sees a small sprig of mistletoe sticking out from a glob of blue-tac on his doorframe.

Freddie looks back at Roger.

“Merry Christmas,” Roger says teasingly. “For the little get-together next week. Don’t let anyone corner you here unless you fancy her, yeah?”

In Roger’s world, a ‘little get-together’ generally means they’ll still be up at dawn, and Freddie knows from grim experience that every girl who has cast hopeful eyes in Roger’s direction recently will be hankering after an invite, not that he seems to notice half of them.

“Thanks for the warning,” Freddie says. Emboldened by the wine, he adds, “Thought you were propositioning me for a moment, there. I was about to slam the door in your face.”

Roger laughs. “Not really my type. Sorry mate.” He draws himself up off the doorframe and blows Freddie an exaggerated kiss before disappearing inside his bedroom.

Freddie lingers for just a moment, glancing up at the mistletoe. He contemplates, just for a moment, taking the mistletoe down and sticking it up over Roger’s doorway instead, just as a joke. But he doesn’t. It’s silly, because him and Roger joke around all the time and they’re close, they’re comfortable, but he wouldn’t want Roger to think… he wouldn’t want Rog to get the wrong impression. And think he’s flirting. Or something like that.

He leaves the mistletoe where it is and closes the door.

-

There have been hundreds of nights like this and there will probably be hundreds more, but they’re young and green enough to still feel a sense of heady delight as they clamber onto the tour bus – _their_ tour bus – and set off for the next city. They’re wild-eyed and thrumming with energy and music, ears still ringing and fingers twitching as though they need to keep playing, keep singing, keep dancing their royal dance for a roaring stamping crowd.

On some nights, they carry on like this until dawn and wake with dull heads under the afternoon sun. Other nights they hit a brick wall of exhaustion that nobody can climb over and slump together around the narrow table, all elbows and curls.

Tonight is the latter. Freddie can tell because Roger keeps yawning and Deaky has already retreated to one of the hard little bunks that line the back of the bus. Brian seems more alert but he’s got his nose buried in a notebook as he scribbles down notes from the shows, improvements they can make, mistakes that can be avoided in the future. Freddie watches him fondly for a while. He’s well aware that the contents of that notebook will doubtless be the spark that ignites an argument at some point in the future, but that’s just them. It’s how they improve.

Freddie glances at Roger. He’s sprawled out next to Freddie with his head tipped back against the faded leather cushion; he’s still got his sunglasses perched on the tip of his nose even though the colour has long since leeched from the sky, but Freddie can tell that his eyes are closed behind them. Freddie should nudge him awake before he falls asleep properly and traps Freddie in the corner, or at the very least climb over him now whilst he’s still only drowsy.

He doesn’t. Roger has the heavy-limbed slump of the properly tired and Freddie doesn’t have it in his heart to disturb him.

He sits and watches the road speed by outside the window, what little he can see of it – just flashes of white paint and cats’ eyes and the odd passing vehicle. It’s not busy and although the bus chugs along with its familiar chugging rumble, the night seems quiet and still. Maybe it’s just the contrast to the show, Freddie thinks, leaning his chin against the heel of his hand. Anything would seem quiet after that.

After a while, Brian retreats to his bunk. Roger shifts in his seat and gives a little sigh. His head starts to droop towards Freddie’s shoulder. Freddie leaves him be.

Freddie is somewhere between asleep and awake when it happens, his chin growing ever closer to his chest with every mile that vanishes beneath the tour bus wheels. Purple dawn is bleeding across the sky.

Roger’s head, fully on Freddie’s shoulder by now and minus his sunglasses, moves just slightly as he starts to stir. Without thinking, Freddie tilts his own head just slightly to glance sleepily down at him.

The movement brings their faces very close. Freddie doesn’t really register it until he’s blinked himself awake a little more; and then Roger’s eyes open.

They’re very blue. There’s a dark ring around his iris that Freddie has never noticed before – why would he? It’s navy against the cornflower blue that Freddie knows so well and he can’t look away.

Roger blinks too, a sweep of blonde lashes against the delicate skin underneath his eye.

There’s a moment. There is, Freddie is sure of it. It’s just a single moment but it stretches on for so long and Freddie has probably forgotten to breathe but it’s fine, it’s fine, he can go without.

The lashes come down over the blue again, abrupt, and Roger pulls away.

“Sorry,” he mutters, sitting up and rolling out the crick in his neck. He turns the other way and pillows his head against his arms on top of the table, his shoulder to Freddie.

Freddie turns too, towards the window. He watches dawn rise. He says nothing.

-

It’s the drink, Freddie tells himself.

Roger’s eyes are bleary and his breath smells like brandy even though Freddie has watched him down a fair bit of vodka already. He’s the life of the party, a vision in a sparkling multi-coloured jacket, sequins rippling and reflecting every time he moves, and everyone’s looking at him.

Of course they are. He’s Roger. He’s beautiful, he’s always beautiful, the most beautiful man in any room.

It’s because there is always someone looking at Roger that Freddie needs to be careful on his behalf when Roger is no longer in a state to be careful for himself. He doesn’t want Roger to have to wake to rumours circulating about him tomorrow. He’s already going to wake up with a raging head as it is.

“Let go, Roggie,” he murmurs when Roger paws at his waist. They’re halfway to a random bedroom; Freddie doesn’t know who it belongs to and he doesn’t care. He just knows that he is going to deposit Roger on the bed, on his side, and fetch him a glass of water like the good friend he is. He is not going to stay in the bedroom himself. He’ll check back on him, but only to make sure Roger is okay.

“Freddie,” Roger slurs, and his hands are wandering again but Freddie ignores them in favour of hauling him towards the bed. “Freddie, c’mon, wanna – ”

“You don’t want anything, you’re drunk,” Freddie tells him. “Sit down.”

Roger doesn’t sit, but he does fall onto the bed, which is the same thing really. He flops out onto the mattress with all the grace of a boneless fish and gives Freddie what he supposes are meant to be sultry eyes.

“Freddie,” he says again.

“I’ll fetch you some water,” Freddie says.

“Freddie. I want – ”

Freddie turns and leaves. He’s all too sober himself and he does not want to hear the next words out of Roger’s mouth. He doesn’t want to hear some stupid drunken flight of fancy that will ruin everything.

Not that there’s anything to ruin in that sense. But there is their friendship, and Freddie values that more than he can ever say.

When he returns with the water, Roger takes it from him and deliberately lets his fingers trail over Freddie’s wrist as the glass passes between them.

Freddie leaves again.

It’s just the drink.

-

“Fred?”

“I’m fine,” Freddie says thickly, turning away and scrubbing a furious hand over his wet eyes, “I’m fine, just – ”

“I’m not going anywhere,” Roger says firmly, and Freddie hears him close the door to the dressing room. “You’ve told me to go away every time this has happened and it’s never helped, has it, so I’m not going now.”

Freddie scoffs at him but doesn’t turn around. Roger might think he’s seen it all before, Freddie upset after yet another fight, yet another insult thrown in his face, but he hasn’t. He hasn’t seen how pathetic Freddie truly is, how he sinks down the corner and clings to his own knees like a child. He knows Freddie cries but he doesn’t know Freddie is an ugly crier. He hasn’t heard Freddie begging for a second chance, promising he’ll be good next time, better next time.

There’s a lot Roger doesn’t know.

Behind him, he hears the pop of Roger pulling the cork out of the whiskey and the familiar double glug of him pouring them both a both a measure. He doesn’t offer Freddie his but sets the glasses down on the dressing table.

“Shit, I’ve spilled a bit…”

“There are tissues in the drawer,” Freddie mutters. He waits a few seconds and then brings his fist to his eyes to try to dry them again, hoping Roger is too busy rootling around to notice.

“Can’t find them,” Roger says. A pause. Then, “Oh, this’ll do…”

Freddie tries to resist but he’s only human; he sneaks a quick glance in the mirror.

Roger is holding his kimono, and he’s bending down to wipe up the whiskey spill with it.

Freddie whips round. “ _Don’t_ use that!”

He stops. Takes stock. Roger, the arse, is grinning at him.

Freddie sighs, but he doesn’t turn away again. “Bastard.”

“Gotcha,” Roger says, cheerfully. He holds out one of the whiskeys. “Come on. Chin chin.”

Their glasses clink. Freddie takes a sip. He usually saves alcohol for later, when he’s passed teary and hit angry, but the burn of the whiskey against his tongue is oddly soothing. Or perhaps the warmth comes from Roger, regarding him with something like affection.

“I’m not going to make a speech or anything,” he says. “But Fred. Honestly? You could do better.”

Freddie doesn’t say anything. They’ve never talked about his relationships before, not since Mary. Roger _knows_ , because Freddie doesn’t really hide it anymore, but that doesn’t mean it’s in the realms of things they’re comfortable talking about.

At least, he has assumed that was the case. But Roger is looking at him shrewdly, like he sees far more than he lets on, and it makes Freddie feel wrong-footed in a way he isn’t used to feeling around Roger.

“You’re better than him,” Roger says. “You’re better than all of them, to be honest – you’ve got shit taste in men, you know that?”

That earns itself a weak laugh and Roger looks pleased with himself. 

“I’d offer to beat him up for you, but I don’t really fancy my chances,” he adds, and Freddie laughs properly this time.

“No, I think you might be a little outmatched, there,” he agrees.

Roger smiles at him. “I’d always have a go, though,” he says, and Freddie hears the unspoken meaning there: _for you._ It makes him feel warmer than the whiskey did and he offers Roger a small smile in return.

“Thanks, Rog,” he says quietly.

“Welcome, mate,” Roger says easily. He steps in close to clap Freddie’s back, friendly and instinctive, and Freddie has to marvel at him, really, at the naturally tactile goodness of Roger Taylor. “Just make a better choice next time, yeah?”

“What, like you?” Freddie returns, keen to fall into their usual territory.

Roger laughs. “You wish,” he says easily. Then he preens and fluffs up his hair. “Would you?”

“Nope,” says Freddie casually, and that’s all it takes; Roger gives a pseudo-indignant screech, and everything’s back to normal.

If not entirely truthful.

-

It ends with a moment of euphoria, except it’s not really an end, and it could even be a beginning.

They’ve completed their usual encore, and an additional one. They’ve run on stage again and again, bowing for as long as the audience will have them, giddy with their own success and the love of the people.

Roger throws his arm around Freddie’s shoulders as they finally start to head backstage again. The line of his body is so hot next to Freddie’s and Freddie is so deliriously happy he feels like he is burning up, like a human body cannot possibly contain the multitudes that exist within him.

They keep singing as they navigate the backstage maze that leads to their dressing room, everyone else, but not Freddie, because his throat is rough as a cat’s tongue. He’s sung enough tonight.

Roger is singing away beside him, or perhaps yelling is a better description – Freddie’s ears would be ringing if he wasn’t already half-deaf from the screams of the audience, but he doesn’t care. He just laughs and puts his arm around Roger’s waist, and together they stagger along, leaning heavily into each other and wobbling about all over the place.

By the time they reach the dressing room, everyone else is already inside and the door is just swinging shut in front of them. Freddie lets go of Roger and is about to push the door open again when he feels a sudden tug on his arm, Roger holding him back from following.

Freddie turns to face Roger questioningly. Before he can say a word, Roger darts forward to close the distance between them and –

Freddie blinks. He isn’t entirely sure he didn’t just imagine that.

Admittedly, it wouldn’t be the first time, but Roger isn’t usually the one who – Roger wouldn’t -

But Roger _has_ , and now he’s looking at Freddie with a strange mixture of defensiveness and expectation.

And hope. There’s definitely hope there and Freddie almost feels dizzy at the sight of it.

“They’re waiting for us,” Freddie says, which is possibly the stupidest thing he could say, and he rushes to add a caveat to soften it but Roger doesn’t seem to need it.

He just nods and asks, “Later?”

_Later._

Freddie looks at Roger for one long moment. He can feel his pulse pounding in his chest and his temple and in the very tips of his fingers. It grounds him, oddly, gives him something to hold onto as he attempts to drag his mind out of the mire.

Roger’s eyes haven’t moved from his face, intent. He looks oddly vulnerable under the harsh lights and serious, too.

_Later._

Later sounds good to him.

And Freddie says, “Yes.”

**Author's Note:**

> I had to resist the urge to write 'AND BRIAN WALKED IN AND SPLIT THEM UP' a solid five times whilst writing this, just so you know


End file.
